F 2534 
.R43 
Copy 1 



REI>LY 



TO 



THE AUTHOR OF THE LETTER 



ON 



- ; i v ' ' 

SOUTH AMERICA AND MEXICO, 

BY AY AMERICAN, 

ADDRESSED TO 

Mr. JAMES MUJVROE, 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

r 

o • 

J J » 

Printed at Washington, in this present year, 1817. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

Printed by J. F. HURTRL, No. 124, South Second street, 

1817. 



s 






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H-.2piafc 



REPLY 



Philadelphia, Nov. 6th. 18 If. 



SIR, 



As you suppress your name in your letter, and as the 
title page in the printed copy which is now in circula- 
tion, only bears the national epithet " American," I 
cannot address you in any other manner* 

The concern you take in the cause of the people of 
South America and Mexico, in rebellion against the ty- 
ranny of the Spanish government, is certainly very lau- 
dable. Being well informed of the justice with which 
they aspire to independence and liberty, and of the im- 
portance of this event, you propose what ought to be the 
conduct of the government of these States, towards 
those which have been produced by the revolution of 
the Spanish colonies in the new world. I return you 
my thanks for your defence of the Columbians and their 
cause ; I, as one of them, and as one of the greatest 
admirers of their emancipation and liberty ought to set 
a high value upon every thing that is valuable in your 
letter. The whole of it would be so to me, if it did not 
disapprove of the revolution of one of the provinces of 
Brazil in America ; and if the course of conduct it pro- 
poses to the President of the United States were not so 



4 



mean. You will not be displeased at my express- 
ing my sell thus in a country in which shines the free-* 
dont of thought, reasoning, and the publishing of one's 
opinions, and when we are agreed on all the rest. 

You are sorry that the revolution of Pernambuco 
shoulu have been applauded in the news papers of the 
United States, confounding it with the struggle of the Pa- 
triots in the Spanish colonies, whose situation and cause 
were really different. Whatever may be the form of the 
Brazilian government, that part of South America has 
already obtained the object for which the other Ameri- 
cans are contending, <*to wit. a government within them- 
selves." These are the words of your letter, adding 
that in the case of the Pernambucans, it was nothing 
but the revolt of an adjoining province. 

This discourse of yours supposes that the right of re- 
sistance against despotism is given only to nations go- 
verned cohnially, or by a power removed from their 
center : that is to say, however oppressed a people may 
be by a central or domestic government, it cannot take 
the alarm to escape from oppression. This is as much 
as to advance that societies have not the common light 
of rising against the arbitrary power of their rulers : 
therefore, if the case were to happen, that the executive 
authority of these United States should abuse the confi- 
dence placed in his hands, by attacking their constitu- 
tional principles, or prevailing upon their Congress, 
they could not turn against the ruler who should thus 
traninle on their rights : they ought patiently to suffer 
this abuse of now er, and be contented with having shak- 
en off the European dependence since the year 1776, 



In following the opinion of your letter with respect 
to Pernambuco, it would be necessary to tell the citizens 
who should rise against their despotic president, & seek 
the assistance of some other power, the same that you 
bring against the Fernambucans : « whatever may be 
your form of government, we can neither assist you, nor 
approve your insurrection, because you have already ob- 
tained the great object of the one which you undertook in 
1774, to wit, an independence of the British government, 
and you have in your bosom an administration which 
was formerly in Europe, " 

If such a proposition as this were advanced by one of 
those who call themselves politicians in the monarchy 
of Spain, or in any other equally despotic and absolute, 
I should not wonder at it ; but its being uttered in a 
country constituted in a free manner, and diametrically 
opposed to despotism, is, to me, very unexpected intel- 
ligence. Formerly it would also have been looked upon 
as a blasphemy in Spain, when the constitutions abolish- 
ed by the Austrian kings were in full force. In that 
of Arragon, the right of resistance was sanctioned as 
one of its cardinal articles. In the English constitution 
this point is established from its most remote antiquity : 
hut the sanction which the right of insurrection received 
from the British parliament is very remarkable, when, 
by this means, the reigning dynasty of G. Britain as- 
cended the throne, to the exclusion of that of James the 
Second. I should never have done, were I to under- 
take to relate all the occasions in which the nations of 
the world have made use of this right against their in- 
ternal administration : it is as ancient as society, or 



6 



despotism. Scarcely had this hydra raised its head 
ere those who were tyrannized also iv.se against it, 
using the common right of resistance, engraved on the 
heart of man by the Creator's own hand. Foreign con- 
quests were yet unknown, and the colonial system of 
Europe was still very distant, when man, already unit- 
ed every where in society, had on numberless occasions 
made use of the right which you deny the Americans 
of Pernambuco, and in them, to every free and inde- 
pendent nation. This is nothing less than denying a 
power granted to all men by the Author of nature, ac- 
cording to the tradition of all ages, and the Holy Scrip- 
tures. 

In all these places it is evident that resistance against 
the arbitrary power of a central and domestic adminis- 
tration is laudable ; but, to resist a just and moderate 
government, is a crime deserving the censure which 
you unjustly let fall on the insurrection of Pernambuco. 
This Province has not conspired against an equitable 
and humane government, but against an arbitrary mo- 
narchy which neither acknowledges nor wishes to ac- 
knowledge any other constitution than the whims and 
caprices of ,a single person. And, where is the natural 
or divine precept which obliges a man to remain sub- 
ject to the will and humour of a single individual ? Do 
you not know, then, that to depend on the good will of 
a single person is what constitutes slavery ? And what 
proofs can you produce to show that a people consist- 
ing of men, created according to God's image and like- 
ness, should be obliged to enter into this slavery, or 
never to come out of it when they once suffered tho yoke 
to he put on them, or found it fastened on their fathers ? 



It is impossible to give legitimate proofs against the 
sentiments of nature, the light of reason, and the testi- 
mony of the i -oly Scriptures. It is unbecoming the high 
dignity of man to wish to subject himself to the abso- 
lute will of a person from whom he has not received his 
beins;. Tt is the same as confounding him with the cat- 
tle belonging to an individual, if this proprietor is to be 
able, on pretence of being a monarch, to dispose of the 
person and property of his subject, as he disposes of his 
beasts of burden, or of the quadrupeds shut up in a park. 
Such are, in your opinion, the natives of Pernambuco, 
when you want them to remain under the arbitrary 
power of the house of Braganza, since it is no longer 
in Lisbon, but at the court of Brazil. I am amazed, 
astonished and surprised to find the pen of an Ameri- 
can politician bringing forth such a proposition as 
this. 

It appears, that when you wrote your disapproba- 
tion of the proceeding of Pernambuco, you gave up 
the recollection of the annals of those nations, who 
have acted like this province against internal despo- 
tism. In your opinion, the Romans were criminal, 
who, led on by Julius Brutus, conspired against their 
king Tarquin the Proud, abolished his monarchy, and 
erected a republic in its stead : the Swiss who, being 
in a state of rebellion against the House of Austria, 
overturned its government, and constituted a democra- 
tical one : the English, who have so often made use of 
the common right of insurrection against their kings 
and internal government: the Portuguese, themselves, 



8 



revolutionized against the crown of Castile, which was 
on the same continent, and within the limits of the 
same peninsula. It would be a fine thing, indeed, that 
all these nations should be told : " Whatever may be 
" your form of government, you cannot conspire against 
H it, since it is within yourselves, or very near, on your 
<•' own continent, washed by the same waters, and not 
" separuted by oceans or inaccessible mountains" 

Such a government, as that of Brazil, is so repug- 
nant to the will of God, that he highly disapproved of 
the conduct of the Israelites when they aspired through 
Samuel to an absolute monarchy. Such was the one 
they wanted ; and its description is made with the ut- 
most exactness in the very speech of the Prophet. 
That now 7 existing in Rio Janeiro is a copy of it. God 
was not displeased with the Hebrews for wishing a 
king, but, that this king should be unconstitutional, 
and as arbitrary and despotic as the one in Brazil. 
Had they demanded such # king as is described in the 
seventeenth chapter of Deuteronomy, their petition 
would have been granted ; because the one mentioned 
in this chapter was not absolute and capricious like 
that of the House of Braganza, but constitutional and 
moderate. And, if God is offended at the pretension 
of a monarchial and absolute government, can he be 
pleased that the Pernambucans and all Brazil should 
forever continue in subjection to the will of its actual 
arbitrary monarch ? So then, because he removed 
from the Tagus to Rio Janeiro, are the Brazilians al- 
ready bound forever to obey the will of this despot, in 
preference to the will of God ? 



9 

According to this new political maxim, the sangui- 
nary contest of the Americans of the Spanish colonies 
"Will be at an end, as soon as Ferdinand the seventh re- 
moves thither whith all his train of tyranny, all his 
pomp of superstition, and his supreme council of inqui- 
sitors. Then the provinces of Spain will have a rignt 
to rise, because the focus of despotism has retired front 
them. As long as he resides in Madrid, Navarre, Gal- 
licia and Catalonia are unable to rise ; and. therefore, 
the generals Mina, Porher, and Lacy are criminals. 
All these are necessary consequences of the new system 
of politics announced by your letter, when it censures 
the conduct of Pernambuco. And, for the same reason, 
David was a criminal when he rose against Saul, 
and maintained himself at the head of a body of 
insurgents of six hundred n en. By the sane rule, 
you ought to condemn the ten tribes of Israel, who 
rebelled against Rehoboam, and founded another 
independent kingdom. They were liable to the 
same argument which you make use of to censure 
the proceeding of Pernambuco : an argument which 
should have made the B Estonians lay down their 
arms, if George the third had come to reside among 
them, although the British Parliament had insisted on 
depriving these legislatures of the right of imposing 
and fixing their contributions. In the event of remo- 
val of the government of London to these provinces, the 
complaint of the citizens would have been at an end, 
although the other causes of insurrection, mentioned in 
their declaration of independence, might have subsisted. 
Intent on decrying what has happened in this province, 
you also object that it is only a partial revolution. 
But do you forget, that this is the condition of almost 
.all national tumults ? The movement of all the parts 
of a nation is very seldom simultaneous. A single per- 



10 

son is the first who is wont to give the first cry of alarm 
against oppressive prwer ; a city, a department, or a 
village uses to be the first who raises the standard of 
insurrection. The remaining districts are accustomed 
to follow slowly, or with more or less celerity. But 
this renders not the person or party criminal Mho open- 
ed the vyay of the revolution. In the one which took 
place in these United States, Boston was the first to 
give the signal of alarm to all the rest, when its popu- 
lation was not equal to that of Pernambuco. And, had 
Boston been left to itself in its glorious enterprise, or 
had it been so unfortunate as to sink under it, would it 
therefore have been called criminal or unworthy of 
being assisted ? 

All the revolted provinces would, perhaps, have re- 
turned to their former dependence, if they had not ob- 
tained the protection of France, Spain, and Holland. 
And would it, in such case, be said, that they were all 
of them criminal and unworthy of foreign assistance ? 
Should Washington and Franklin be placed on the list 
of malefactors, or on that of heroes ? I know that in the 
opinion of oppressors, the issue is what denominates 
such undertakings good or bad. But their judgment 
is neither impartial nor right. In the balance of jus- 
tire, success is not what determines the goodness or 
wickedness of human actions : uprightness of intention, 
and the just or unjust motives of the actors, are the ba- 
sis of impartial expression. He who rises against a 
just and well constituted government, will be a traitor : 
hut he who takes the alarm against the arbitrary power 
of his country, or of his fellow creatures, will be a hero, 
a man of virtue and worthy of praise. If men, at the 
time they agreed to Jive in society, had executed a 



11 



compact of eternal toleration in favor of despotism, 
your proposition would, perhaps, appear tolerable; 
but, the contract of the members being the reverse, 1 
know not whence you can bring arguments to maintain 
your opinion respecting Pernambuco. On the other 
hand, it is well known, that if even the first associates 
had agreed to such a compact, it would be unquestion- 
bly void. The rights of man are too sacred to be sus- 
ceptible of a conventional degradation, such as is en- 
deavored to be represented in your hypothesis. The 
contracting parties should be supposed mad ; and, 
being unfit to stipulate and promise the spoliation of 
their natural dignity, all their engagements would be 
null. Many others are so which are performed by the 
stupid, the frantic, and children, although the matter 
of the contract be infinitely inferior to liberty, and the 
other imprescriptible rights which compose the great 
fund of society. 

You cannot be ignorant that, in Brazil, there is no 
constitution, no representative government, nor law de- 
serving this holy name. All the Brazilians are slaves, 
because they all depend on the will of an individual, 
. which can never have any claim to the respectable cha- 
racter of a law. That which is properly called law, 
is the expression of the general will. The people of 
Pernambuco have no share in the formation of those 
acts which are honored by Despotism with the appella- 
tion of Law. In a word, the Brazilians are deprived 
of the exercise of their rights : the forced duty »of blind 
obedience is the only right which, under this deceitful 
denomination is acknowledged in the provinces of Bra- 
zil, by their oppressor. And, yet, will you have it be 
a crime to undertake the reformation of this abuse, by 



13 

meaus of an insurrection. ...the only way to obtain it 
from a tyrant who considers as high treason the at- 
tempt of setting constitutional impediments to his ar- 
bitrary power ? 

When I see in your letter that, affecting not to no- 
tice the sovereignty of the people, you exclusively be- 
stow this attribute on the house of Braganza, I am not 
astonished that you should also deny the Pemambu- 
cans, and all the Americans of Brazil, the common 
right of insurrection against their arbitrary govern- 
ment. Nothing of this will surprise any one who shall 
observe the new rule which you introduce to qualify 
revolutions as just or unjust. Until now, this innate 
principle in the hearts of all men, and of ail nations, 
did not at all depend on the mathematics and other 
arts and sciences foreign to sound policy; but, in your 
letter, you subject it in such a manner to geography, 
as to make the value of distances be that which is to 
decide with precision on the value or nullity of insur- 
rectional movements, of their justice and injustice. 
And, although experience shows that the weight of 
tyranny is oftentimes heavier and more painful to those 
who live in its center, than to those on the circumfe- 
rence ; to the subjects nearer the tyrant than to those 
who are more distant; the maxim invented by you 
should, notwithstanding, remain unalterable when the 
question is about the liberty of Brazil, or the one mil- 
lion and one hundred thousand souls which inhabit the 
province of Pernambuco. I read in the great book of 
nature, in the practice of all nations, and in the Holy 
Scriptures, the duty of saving from their anguish and 
danger those who are led to death, or suffer unjustly. 
I see that this duty is more obligatory among persons 



j 18 

r 

t of the same family, of the same community, people, or 

nation. I find, in many places, the urgency of this 
duty in those persons who, by their valor and other 
virtues, are more fit for the purpose. In the same 
> manner as they have received ■ more gifts from nature, 

they have also received from her the especial precept 
of employing them for the benefit of their oppressed 
fellow creatures, though at the risk of life. 

If this obligation, then, has been imposed on every 
one, will it be lessened by the bonds of society ? You 
yourself confess, and with reason, that as man was not 
created to live by himself in solitude, so nations were 
not formed to exist in a solitary state. We are not 
horn for ourselves only, but to support, serve, and mu- 
tually help each other. By the social contract, this 
duty, far from being relaxed, is more concluding and 
strait. Why then disapprove the completion of it in 
the patriots of Pernaoibuco ? and why deny other pow- ^ 
erfui nations the right or obligation of protecting them? 
What would have been the issue of the glorious un- 
dertaking of these illustrious citizens, if, by such argu- 
ments as those contained in your letter, France, Spain * 
and Holland had abstained from affording them Ueir % t - 
protection? Would you wish that I had then addressed 
to the governments of those nations a discourse pro- 
portionate to the one made by you to the President 






against the revolution of Pernambuco ? The natural 
precept of wishing and not wishing to others, v\ hat wc 
wish or wish not lor ourselves, binds each aud every 
individual of our species. And, bow do you apply it 
in the cause of Pernambuco ? Will you be able to say 
wito any evidence, f iiat the Pernumbucans, oj the 
Americans of all the provinces of Brazil conducted 



14 

themselves towards these United States in their revo- 
lution, as the king of Portugal ? Are you, by chance, 
ignorant, that this despot shut his ports against iheir 
commerce and accused them of being rebels, traitors, 
and criminals ? Why then so great a regard for him 
in your letter, and none at all for those patriots who 
subscribed not to the sentiments of the court of Lisbon 
at that time, and who, on the 6th March, 1817, fhorght 
themselves very honorable in imitating the Bostonians 
of 17741 

You confess, in your letter, that, during the late 
war, the house of Braganza, by the nature of its rela- 
tions with England, leaned rather to the side of our 
enemy ; and. do you believe, that this inclination, and 
its former conduct in the war for independence are 
^ J % purged away by .its having, through the influence of 

-^^ja^^^'its minister Aurajo, named as Ambassador near the 
s^ government of the United States, a Person, who had 
made this country his choice , who was on terms of 
friendship with many of our most distinguished fellow 
citizens , who was supposed to be too much a republican 
f y ^ fotl Europe ? I should rather believe, that since the 
WfyZUZ^f Chevalier Aurajo had caused the appointment to fall on 
^ an Abbe who is a republican by principle, and unjustly 

persecuted hy the inquisition, he would not be displeas- 
ed with the proceeding at Pernambuco. I should have 
considered that minister as possessing no small share 
of republicanism when I read the treaty which, in the 
name of Portugal, he executed with the Executive Di- 
rectory of the French TSepuhlic, on the 10th August, 
1797. But, I do not believe the tyrant of Brazil to be 
purified, but by means of the course undertaken in the 
province of Pernambuco, and the aid which it claims 
from these United States. 



15 

You admit the right in the remaining powers to co- 
operate with any other one in repressing its rebellious 
subjects. I suppose you speak in the case of an un- 
just rebellion; because, if it be a just one, co-operating 
against the insurgents will n<t be a right nor a duty, 
but an excess of injustice. In this sense, you must con- 
fess, that it a nation may, or ought to help another in 
the subjugation and chastisement of a people unjustly 
rebelled, the duty of protecting them in a just insurrec- 
tion is correlative. For want of this help, the best citi- 
zens of Pernambuco have perished in the heroic enter- 
prise of liberating their fellow citizens from slavery: 
the cause of the freedom of Brazil has retrograded, and 
its oppressor, by loading himself with new crimes, is 
become more infamous and unworthy of reigning among 
the Pernambucans : consequently, these are more de- 
serving of the attention and succors which the justice 
of their cause demands. 

The atrocities committed by that monster in St. 
Salvador and Pernambuco are notorious. His hands 
have been stained with the innocent blood of those per- 
sons who undertook the freedom of their fellow crea- 
tures. 

This tyrant has not shed as much blood as the Spa- 
niards have, in the war against the Americans of the 
colonies belonging to Spain : but his conduct, compared 
to that of Ferdinand VII is, without a doubt, more ex- 
ecrable and cruel, by reason of the inhuman and barba- 
rous manner in which many Patriots of Pernambuco 
have been executed. But, notwithstanding all the 
blood that has been, and is actually shed by the execu- 
tioners of the Spanish government in South America 
and Mexico, you do not yet condescend to incline fo 



16 

assistance which the patriots are imploring since the, 
yea, 1 8 i 0. You content yourself with official relations 
ot friendship and commerce; an excellent measure, if 
it souhi prevent the copious effusion of blood which is 
taking place in America, or fixing forever its emanci- 
pation. The war carried on by the Spaniards in the 
revolted colonies is a hellish one. They have taught it 
to tiie Americans, who retaliate on them in the same 
way. And, have the other nations neither rights nor 
duties to check and remedy this disorder ? 

Any individual is authorised to disarm a madman, 
and deprive him of the instruments with which he sheds 
thu blood of the innocent : and, is it a duty unknown, 
in tiic assembly of many individuals, to bring over to 
reason a frantic king who, without any reason whatever, 
is committing a horrible butchery on so many worthy 
American patriots who, without offending any one, 
claim those rights which are acknowledged by all na- 
tions ? And, if this claim is just, and resistance against 
the arbitrary power of Spain is just, why abstain from 
helping the innocent, or disarming the frantic offender 
who unjustly and barbarously persecutes them ? Why 
not save them from their anguish and danger ? Why 
tolerate any longer or consider with indifference a war 
of death and extermination ? 

So then, for the freedom of the seas, although the 
want of it deprives no one of life, shall it be lawful to 
go to war? And, shall it not be lawful, in order to pre- 
vent a greater effusion ol innocent blood by a fanatic 
government to arm against it, and bieak one's neutra- 
lity ? To hinder the plan or duration of the continen- 
tal system of fcurope all the other powers of the conti- 
nent are to arm themselves against the author of it: 
and. to repress the sanguinary tyrant who intends to 
unpeople and enchain anew , a continent larger than 
that of Europe, shall there not be even one nation to 
take up arms against him, or furnish them to the de- 
fenders of its liberty ? I cannot reconcile this incon- 
sistency to the eternal principles of justice, philosophy, 
and reason : an!. ; f this inconsequence is called policy, 
I renounce it forever, and abstain from lengthening 
this reply. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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